Sell a Shadow
by Cicigwagwa
Summary: Bella Swan can't remember anything,after an accident that leaves her with amnesia, she developed strange dreams. Her neighbor, Edward, knows something- but what? And how far will Bella go to piece the puzzle of her past together? Lemons...later
1. Not Close Enough

**A/N: ok, this is my second fan fic, and its a little out of my comfort zone. because im going in blind! yay. haha. so this one is about Bella and Edward- it had nothing to do with Kill the Lights. in this story, The Cullens are not vampires, but a big piece of the Mob- extended family of the Voultare. so you can imagine they are very close net. i hope you like it. this first chapter is really slow because i wasnt sure about what i wanted to happen, but now i am! so get ready! thanks, please review. **

**(truthfully, i like kill the lights better, but we have to give it a shot!)**

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Chapter One

**Bella**

_There was water everywhere. Painted liquid, painted in red. Little bubbles of air escaped me, bursting, and turning. Blood. There was blood, blood around me, in my eyes, in my lungs. The painted red water was rushing in a line, the sun shining with intent. I couldn't pin point my position, the water moved and moved. My fingers reached for a hand. A ghost of a hand, I slipped right through. Colors melted into one another, the green of the world turned black, the blues and reds merged into darkness. A pair of eyes, deep topaz, stared at me- clear in the liquid. The rush was white now, light seeped through my eye lids, and the world disappeared. I reached out. I couldn't find a thing to grab. Spiders worked there way up my arms- I felt them. I screamed, but no sound came out. The spiders crawled up to my neck, surrounding me. They filed into my mouth, filling my throat, my lungs…eating away at me…._

I sat up, woke up by the screaming. I was gasping for air, the sheets stuck to my body, twisted around me. I looked around my darkened room, the one I haven't painted yet, and fell back against my bed. I couldn't get enough air, and I didn't know how long I laid there.

The morning light spilled into my room, warming my chilled body. I fought the pull of sleep. I never slept all the way through the night anymore, the nightmares taking over and waking me up. Now that the day had come, I pulled myself out of bed, and readied for work.

I had been out of the hospital for a month now. And I was healing quite well. My head didn't bleed anymore. I padded to the bathroom of my new house. I apparently bought it a week before the accident. I don't remember this. I don't remember anything. My life feels like a big blank slate, with nothing on it. I had no past, no one I knew from before. My family, the doctors said, have been dead for years. I was alone.

The world was big and lonely, with no one around me to ease the pain of the darkness. My mind seemed like an empty vessel. I remembered the basics- like things I've learned over the course of my twenty one years. I remember how to brush my teeth and what two plus two is. But the people are gone, who I was is gone. I don't have a favorite food, not a fond memory of loved ones.

I was person with no past, and virtually no future. My house on the corner of Clemmer street was small and comfy, but void of any sort of emotion. But out of all of these things, the worst thing about my amnesia is the dreams. Visions I can't seem to get a handle on, faces that have no name, places I've never been. The worst is knowing I had more, and not really knowing. The worst is forgetting.

I worked at a clinic. I had started right after I got out of the hospital myself, and not knowing much else, I went into a field that held some sort of familiarity. My day was a haze of medications, IV's faces, and orders.

I went home that night exhausted, my feet dragging. Outside my door, I paused to unlock it. My hand touched the door knob, a sharp pain exploded through my head. I closed my eyes and groaned.

Flashes of faces, smiles and screams flew through my vision. I let go of the knob and they stopped. Gasping, I let threw myself into my house. I collapsed on the thread bare couch. I kicked off my shoes and curled up. It was like I couldn't control anything, the world was a movie- feeding me images I didn't want.

I closed my eyes, praying for a dreamless night. This of course was in vain. They came as soon as my eyes closed.

_His smile was the one I had been waiting for. His green eyes were the ones I had been looking for. His voice was one I had hoped to hear. Too far away, I couldn't reach him, could touch, yet couldn't let go. My feet were stuck, suspended in mid air, the wind around me visible, and the sun above me burning. My skin was burning. He had a hand out to me- I reached. I fell. The world was dark now, the sun melted. The bottomless pit I was falling in swallowed me whole. _

I opened my eyes, the sound of a car alarm waking me up. I looked at my phone. Three in the morning. I had only been asleep for three hours. I slowly pulled myself off of my couch and shed most of my uniform. The noise of the alarm was hitting my head and bouncing off the walls. I sat down to put my head between my knees. The pain didn't recede. It got worse. I pulled my hands back from head to find blood all over them.

This wasn't good. I needed to get back to my doctor. I staggered up, dizzy. I grabbed on to the couch to steady myself as I looked for my car keys. I needed to reach doctor Carlisle at the clinic. I tripped on my own feet as I grabbed my keys to head out the door. I had no shoes on, but it was the last thing on my mind. This had happened before yes, but it had never been this bad. I felt the blood running down my neck, coming out of my ears.

I opened the front door, and stumbled to my car, not even bothering to lock my door. I saw nothing but my feet below me and I made my way. I went to fall again, not to my surprise, but was caught.

I was vaguely aware of a pare of arms gathering me up. I struggled against them, but they held on tightly.

"No…"I gasped, the world spun. "I have to get to Carlisle. I have to…" the blood was running down my arms to the side walk. The last thing I saw was a pare of green eyes, and I was comforted.

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**Edward**

I hated what I had done to her. Driving her car to my father's clinic, I looked back at Bella Swan. My former fiancé. The love of my life. Who was currently bleeding out in the passenger seat of her Pontiac. I drove as fast as I could, my heart beating a mile a minute. It was bad enough she had no memory of me- but I could still watch her, could still see her alive. But if she died, if she died because of me, there would be nothing left.

I carried her to Carlisle, who took her automatically. I didn't know why she just didn't call 911. Bella was cold and pale. She looked like me.

"Carlisle." I pleaded, taking her hand at her hospital bed, it reminded me of the first time we had been here-after the accident. I had been standing just as I had now, pleading for her life. But while her life was spared, her memory was lost forever. It was better this way, I told myself, just as everyone else in my family had. It was better that she didn't remember us, didn't remember what we were. She was safe now. But was she happy?

She was close to waking up when I left her. I drove Carlisle's car home, where I could keep an eye on her. Home, the home I bought right next to hers, the house I bought for her as a wedding gift. She picked it out, she loved that house. So she got to keep it. and I would be there, close at hand. But never close enough.

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**A/N: ok, so thats the first chapter. any questions, feel free to message me and such. review, though! review! **


	2. Right To Know

**A/N: in this chapter we learn a little about Bella and Edward from before. You'll learn more in the next chapter. Andd im thinking that the next chapter is the chapter that Bella meets her former fiance for the 'first' time. Poor Edward. dont we bleed for him? so VAWLA! enjoy this chapter of Sell a Shadow. **

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Chapter Two

**Edward**

I unlocked her door, and though it may be a bit stalkerish- I still owned a key. It wasn't as if I was barraging in and demanding she remember me, no, it was for times like this; it was for the times she would need me, but never know it. I set her down gently on the couch she brought from her old apartment- the couch her late grandmother gave to her.

Bella shifted, restless. Her head was shaking back and forth as if she were trying to say something, as if her dreams took a turn for the worst. I backed up, taking my hands off of her body that I knew so well. A small moan escaped her mouth, and her eyebrows furrowed. Concerned, I placed a couch cushion under her head, cradling her in my hands.

"Please," she whispered, her hand reaching out to me, clasping my shirt tightly. I gulped down the wad in my throat at seeing her like this. For the past month I've wondered if leaving her was the right thing to do. My family insisted it was. But now I wasn't so sure. I left her alone. I knew she had no family, knew she hadn't had any friends since she moved here. Forks small, yes, and the only people she had communicated with over the last year in friendly manners were my family. Our family, Bella was a part of the family, as I thought of it. it was just so much safer for her to be out of our lives- for her.

I took my hands and placed it over her smaller one, gripping on to me. I couldn't stay the night, couldn't be here when she woke up. A stranger in her home would surely scare the living day lights out of her. And I just couldn't come out and say I knew her, it would destroy the safety her amnesia had given her. I gently pried her hands off of my shirt, the movement stabbing me in the heart. I quickly covered her with a blanket and left before I could change my mind.

Once home I undid my tie and collapsed in my arm chair. I may have been twenty three, but at that moment I felt ancient. I just missed the woman I loved. I closed my eyes and remembered the night we met.

_I was outside the airport, waiting for Esme to get out to the pick up area. We were supposed to go to the restaurant in a half an hour. It took about twenty minutes to drive there. I didn't know how I got stuck being mom's chauffer, but I suppose it didn't matter now. I was driving Alice's old shit kicker that looked more like a cab in rehab than a real car. I bought her a brand new Porsche just for this very reason. _

_Not willing to stand in the frigid Washington air, I sat in the drivers seat and waited, blasting the heat. Suddenly the back door swung open, and woman's head peeked in. I looked back at her, surprised, but she just smiled and climbed in. Shocked, I couldn't say a word. Though the fact that she randomly got into my car crossed my mind, I was too busy being blind sighted by her…eyes. They were brown, like warm coco on a winters night. Her hair was deep mahogany, silky strands curling around her shoulders. Her face was flushed from the cold, her smile dropping when she realized I wasn't responding to what she was saying. _

_"Excuse me?" she asked, her voice timid, "You are a cab, right?" This knocked me out of my trance. I shook my head and she stared at me._

_"I'm afraid not." I said seriously, "But that's fine. I get it all the time." She laughed along with me at the cars expense, not hers._

_"I'm really sorry," she said, moving to get out, "I didn't realize…"_

_"No, wait!" I called before I thought twice, "Its fine, really. I'm just waiting for my mom, Esme. Where are you headed, maybe I could drop you? I'm heading into town anyway." She smiled at me, and I could see the rejection forming on her cute mouth. _

_"Before you say no," I said, glancing out the car window, "There's my mother. She'd want to say hello." I knew my mother would never let the girl go back out into the cold when we were just as capable of transportaion. Esme opened the door and beamed into the car. _

_"Hello Edward," she said, then turned to the back seat, startled, "And who's your friend?" _

_"Hey mom." I said, remembering I never got her name, "This is…" _

_"Bella Swan." The girl jumped in. My mother smiled and shook Bella's hand, introducing herself and climbing in to the front passenger seat. _

_"So, Eddy, you didn't tell me you had a girlfriend!" my mother exclaimed, ecstatic. I opened my mouth to tell her the real story, but Bella go to it first. _

"_Oh," she said, "I'm sorry Mrs. Cullen I climbed into your son's car thinking he was a cab. If you just drop me off here I'll get one and get on my way" My mother 'humphed' and Bella flushed nicely._

"_Nonsense," my mother, bless her soul, said lightly, "Edward will drive you where you are needed. So please, where are you going?" _

_Bella flashed a grateful smile, "The Three Flores Restaurant, I have to meet a business colleague there before I settle into my hotel." I heard my mother's gears working. _

"_What a coincidence!" she beamed, "We are headed there, also. Would you care to join me and my family for dinner?" _

"_Oh no," Bella squeaked, "I couldn't!" My mother waved a manicured hand through the air. _

"_Nonsense. There's no intrusion." _

_I saw Bella's flustered face and knew she lost the battle. "Very well." She said, catching my eye with a small, shy smile. _

I remembered that night was the night I asked to see her again, one thing led to another and we were soon dating. After about eight months of that, I proposed. She was the one I wanted to spend my life with. We decided to get married on our one year anniversary, and one week before the wedding… well, let's say the wedding was cancelled.

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**Bella**

I woke up feeling like cotton was stuffed into my mouth. I slowly lifted myself, looking around for my phone.

_5:32 pm, Tuesday. _Holy crap. I slept the day away after work yesterday…? I felt like I was forgetting something important, but my life consisted of those feelings now, so it wasn't unusual. I was still dressed in my uniform for work, so naturally it was wrinkled beyond belief. Groaning, I made my way to the shower.

Was this who I am now? Who was I before? This seemed like a shell of who I really was, it didn't seem important- it was shallow and unconventional. The mystery around my amnesia was strange, as if the doctors hadn't known what happened to me either. No one would tell me, as if it was erased from their database. What happened to me?

I let the water run down my body, timidly closing my eyes. I hoped that this would be the time they disappeared. I hoped this would be the time it would all go away. But as soon as my eyes closed and the water surrounded me, they came back.

_Rushing water, small laughs, evil laughs. Muscles that seemed to be sore and unusable. Lungs that couldn't expand, contracting, contracting. . Bubbles and blood. So much blood. Blood…_

I opened my eyes, letting the silent tears fall- mixing with the water of my shower. I was suddenly filled with a type of resolve.

I would find out about myself. No more skating by, barely there- half real and half fictional character. My past is my right to know.

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**A/N: ok, so what do you think?? i felt like i could have done more, but i just want to move this story along, you know? get to the point! woooo. **

**so. REVIEW. and please check out my other story, Kill the Lights. it may be about Jacob, but i swear its at least better and more action packed than this one. pleeeease? jacob needs some lovin too, people. so just check it out. for me?? haha. yeah. bribery. it works. **


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